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Poor county erects chic walls to screen eyesores
By Ni Tao |
December 18, 2012, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
People's Daily reported on Monday that some newly erected walls in rural Gansu Province in northwestern China have stirred controversy.
These walls are built along a national highway that cuts through Zhangxian County, designated an impoverished area by the national government and hence eligible for anti-poverty funds.
Stretching more than 10 kilometers and topped with glazed tiles, the 2-meter-high structures have cost millions of yuan and stand in sharp contrast with the surrounding abject poverty.
The per capita income of local residents in 2011 was a mere 2,960 yuan (US$435), less than half of the national average of 6,977 yuan for rural Chinese.
Construction on the walls started in October and villagers living nearby were promised a better life with these new structures. It didn't take them long to find out the walls were not intended for their benefits, but for satisfying some officials' vanity.
Some villagers said the walls are primarily built to hide peasants' derelict homes and foul-smelling pigsties from the sight and tender olfactory senses of officials who frequently pass by, according to People's Daily.
Asked about the reason for generous spending on the screening walls, the county government stumbled. According to an official statement released on Tuesday, these walls are part of a project to ensure public safety, since car traffic is increasing on the highway and posing a threat to pedestrians.
Villagers believe otherwise. Many, when interviewed, are of the opinion that the walls create the safety problem rather than provide the solution, because people are compelled to walk on an even narrower strip of dirt dangerously close to motorized traffic.
Real motivation
Given the habitual pomp of many local authorities, a project said to benefit hundreds, if not thousands, tends to be heavily touted. The government of Zhangxian County, however, lay low regarding this "good will" project - not a single word about the walls is seen in media reports, in which villagers would presumably express their gratitude over and over, in one voice.
This low profile contrasts with the county authorities' hype four months ago when they promoted the area's resources for rock climbing at a press conference in the provincial capital city of Lanzhou in July.
However hard the county officials deny the walls are a vanity project, they are clearly seen to be such.
A Xinhua commentary published on Tuesday opined that the impulse in some backwaters to build so-called "vanity walls" is strong, because of the mindset of "out of sight, out of mind" of some cadres who think poverty can be concealed to impress their superiors on inspection.
Moreover, neatly painted, glazed walls give these cadres something to boast about, as a testament to their ability to eradicate poverty quickly. Potemkin villages could be their ticket to promotion.
Therefore, it surprises no one to find that some impoverished locales happen to be the most active in lavishing money on projects of particularly bad taste.
In poverty-stricken Zhouzhi County in Shaanxi Province, local authorities recently put up a city gate consisting of eight pillars that resemble cigarettes knifing into the sky. The architecture reportedly is valued at several million yuan.
In an even more absurd case, officials in Xichuan County, a state-level impoverished locale in Henan Province, made two gigantic pine trees out of cement and "planted" them in front of the office building of the forestry bureau in 2010. Each reportedly cost 300,000 yuan. They were dismantled after the forestry chief responsible for ordering their creation fell from grace over graft in 2012.
In sectors rife with corruption, embezzlement of tax money is not news. Still, it makes people's blood boil to hear that money earmarked for children's welfare is misappropriated.
For a long time, children in some western regions of China have suffered from malnutrition, having nothing but steamed rice mixed with soya beans for school lunch. A national campaign kicked off last year to improve their diet.
One year on, a teacher in Fenghuang County, Hunan Province recently blogged that a standard 3-yuan school meal, subsidized by the state, had been reduced to scraps of bread and milk worth less than 2 yuan.
Sharp contrast
Instead of benefiting the more than 30,000 intended recipients, the local school lunch program swelled the wallets of unscrupulous businessmen and officials acting in collusion, the Yangcheng Evening News reported.
In China, cadres' whims dominate the way they spend, leading often to a wanton waste of money that could otherwise be used on people's real needs.
Take Zhangxian County's vanity walls. Millions could have been spent on bridges, roads, sanitation, and children's education, the things that do make a difference in the fight against poverty. But it appears some officials' face matters more than people's basic subsistence needs.
Since construction is one of the most corrupt sectors in China, a thorough probe should be carried into where the money has gone, and if possible, to recover some misused funds.
More needs to be done to give a voice to those living in impoverished regions, who often are underrepresented in the process of deciding how aid is spent.
Aid in China should come with strings attached. Aid distributors must be evaluated not on how many showy walls they build that block perceived eyesores, but on how well they deliver on pledges to lift citizens' living standards.
These walls are built along a national highway that cuts through Zhangxian County, designated an impoverished area by the national government and hence eligible for anti-poverty funds.
Stretching more than 10 kilometers and topped with glazed tiles, the 2-meter-high structures have cost millions of yuan and stand in sharp contrast with the surrounding abject poverty.
The per capita income of local residents in 2011 was a mere 2,960 yuan (US$435), less than half of the national average of 6,977 yuan for rural Chinese.
Construction on the walls started in October and villagers living nearby were promised a better life with these new structures. It didn't take them long to find out the walls were not intended for their benefits, but for satisfying some officials' vanity.
Some villagers said the walls are primarily built to hide peasants' derelict homes and foul-smelling pigsties from the sight and tender olfactory senses of officials who frequently pass by, according to People's Daily.
Asked about the reason for generous spending on the screening walls, the county government stumbled. According to an official statement released on Tuesday, these walls are part of a project to ensure public safety, since car traffic is increasing on the highway and posing a threat to pedestrians.
Villagers believe otherwise. Many, when interviewed, are of the opinion that the walls create the safety problem rather than provide the solution, because people are compelled to walk on an even narrower strip of dirt dangerously close to motorized traffic.
Real motivation
Given the habitual pomp of many local authorities, a project said to benefit hundreds, if not thousands, tends to be heavily touted. The government of Zhangxian County, however, lay low regarding this "good will" project - not a single word about the walls is seen in media reports, in which villagers would presumably express their gratitude over and over, in one voice.
This low profile contrasts with the county authorities' hype four months ago when they promoted the area's resources for rock climbing at a press conference in the provincial capital city of Lanzhou in July.
However hard the county officials deny the walls are a vanity project, they are clearly seen to be such.
A Xinhua commentary published on Tuesday opined that the impulse in some backwaters to build so-called "vanity walls" is strong, because of the mindset of "out of sight, out of mind" of some cadres who think poverty can be concealed to impress their superiors on inspection.
Moreover, neatly painted, glazed walls give these cadres something to boast about, as a testament to their ability to eradicate poverty quickly. Potemkin villages could be their ticket to promotion.
Therefore, it surprises no one to find that some impoverished locales happen to be the most active in lavishing money on projects of particularly bad taste.
In poverty-stricken Zhouzhi County in Shaanxi Province, local authorities recently put up a city gate consisting of eight pillars that resemble cigarettes knifing into the sky. The architecture reportedly is valued at several million yuan.
In an even more absurd case, officials in Xichuan County, a state-level impoverished locale in Henan Province, made two gigantic pine trees out of cement and "planted" them in front of the office building of the forestry bureau in 2010. Each reportedly cost 300,000 yuan. They were dismantled after the forestry chief responsible for ordering their creation fell from grace over graft in 2012.
In sectors rife with corruption, embezzlement of tax money is not news. Still, it makes people's blood boil to hear that money earmarked for children's welfare is misappropriated.
For a long time, children in some western regions of China have suffered from malnutrition, having nothing but steamed rice mixed with soya beans for school lunch. A national campaign kicked off last year to improve their diet.
One year on, a teacher in Fenghuang County, Hunan Province recently blogged that a standard 3-yuan school meal, subsidized by the state, had been reduced to scraps of bread and milk worth less than 2 yuan.
Sharp contrast
Instead of benefiting the more than 30,000 intended recipients, the local school lunch program swelled the wallets of unscrupulous businessmen and officials acting in collusion, the Yangcheng Evening News reported.
In China, cadres' whims dominate the way they spend, leading often to a wanton waste of money that could otherwise be used on people's real needs.
Take Zhangxian County's vanity walls. Millions could have been spent on bridges, roads, sanitation, and children's education, the things that do make a difference in the fight against poverty. But it appears some officials' face matters more than people's basic subsistence needs.
Since construction is one of the most corrupt sectors in China, a thorough probe should be carried into where the money has gone, and if possible, to recover some misused funds.
More needs to be done to give a voice to those living in impoverished regions, who often are underrepresented in the process of deciding how aid is spent.
Aid in China should come with strings attached. Aid distributors must be evaluated not on how many showy walls they build that block perceived eyesores, but on how well they deliver on pledges to lift citizens' living standards.
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